Purple Rising
Challenge
For nearly 40 years, The Color Purple has remained transcendent—resonating with audiences across the globe over multiple generations. Scott Sanders, the award-winning producer who shepherded The Color Purple from book to stage to film, came to us with an exciting but challenging proposition: tell the story of The Color Purple’s history in a single, stunning book, coinciding its publication with the release of a new star-studded musical feature film.
Solution
We assembled a dream team that included writer Lise Funderburg, design firm Morcos Key, and cover artist Jamea Richard-Edwards, and closely collaborated with them to conceive a book that is as beautiful as it is substantive—a worthy tribute to Walker’s masterpiece. More than 60 creators, actors, producers, activists, cultural critics, and well-known fans from across page, stage, and screen were interviewed in just a few short months for this ambitious project, which touches on everything from the original novel, to the 1985 film adaptation, to the many theatrical productions around the world, to the 2023 feature film.
A LAYERED READING EXPERIENCE
The book is anchored by a compelling oral history narrative that’s broken up intermittently with special features that are almost mini-chapters in themselves, with contributions from Alice Walker, Oprah Winfrey, Taraji P. Henson, and many more. An extensive timeline at the beginning of the book provides a visual overview of The Color Purple’s impact across four decades.
NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN PHOTOS
Many of the photos in the book—nearly 350 in total—have never been seen before. Our team sourced photos from far and wide, digging deep into archive boxes, reaching out to theater productions, pulling from Oprah Winfrey’s archives, scouring online sources for obscure images, and of course editing and showcasing hundreds of stunning images from the new film.
A COVER THAT'S A PIECE OF FINE ART
Purple Rising is a celebration of Black Joy, storytelling, and achievement, and it was essential that the cover art be a part of that story. We collaborated with design firm Morcos Key and commissioned artist Jamea Richmond-Edwards to create a stunning piece of fine art that embodies The Color Purple’s legacy across time and form.
EXCEEDING EXPECTATIONS
In the first week of publication, the book was featured as one of Oprah’s iconic “Favorite Things,” was the subject of a 12-page excerpt in O magazine, and was also excerpted on Time.com. In the words of our client, Scott Sanders, “This book is EVERYTHING (and more) than I hoped it could or would be.”
